by Sylene Argent
After a successful first season of “Thrive: A Living Manual for Families,” St. Paul’s Anglican Church and Essex United Church again joined up to host the intergenerational and interdenominational program for this schoolyear.
The Thrive program is designed to help people navigating life.
On Sunday evening, Thrive officially kicked-off with an opportunity for the participants to enjoy making a personal-sized pizza for dinner, and continued with analyzing the Harry Potter series.
Reverend Christine Brouillard-Coyle said, with a popular interest in the Harry Potter series, it was selected as the theme for the first Thrive session of this schoolyear.
“Harry Potter is a lot of fun. There is a lot we can learn from things in popular culture,” she said, noting there were themes in Harry Potter those at the Thrive session could learn from.
The program began with everyone getting assigned a character, but they had to learn who their character was based on how others treated them. She noted author J.K. Rowling applied certain characteristics to some of her antagonistic characters to make the reader feel weary of them. From there, the group discussed how people treat one another, including how people can be pre-judged others in some cases.
The group also played a game where they looked at a photo for a certain amount of time to answer a question. From there, they were asked a surprise question after the photo was put away. This activity led to a discussion on how things can be missed in every day life and to look at the whole picture of any given situation.
Depending on how the theme resonated with the Thrive group, Brouillard-Coyle said it could be the theme for the remainder of the meetings this schoolyear. Even if participants are unfamiliar with the series, the workshops are designed so everyone can participate.
To learn more about the program and the next meeting date, visit the Thrive: A Living Manual for Families Facebook page.
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